Thursday, July 12, 2012

tobacco tin time: plugging my plug pluggers

I've forayed into homemade rivets, attaching tin
tobacco tags and the like to tin-can backings cut from a Sunshine Candies container. I'll be
selling these goodies at Renegade Handmade (see previous post).

Tin tobacco tags were a promotional tool used circa 1880-1920. These are all tobacco tags except the feather and the key, which were promotional pinbacks from Red Feather Services, a forerunner to the United Way, and a 1947 tourist promotional key that was worn by teachers and students visiting D.C. and Virginia on spring break.

According to cigarhistory.info, "A key strategy
in the war for market supremacy was the offering of household items as
premiums in exchange for tags. The man who couldn’t afford to buy his
wife a set of silver-plated tableware, might be able to accumulate the 500 tags
necessary to get six Rogers knives and forks for free." Like S&H Green Stamps!